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mental illness

My neurologist took me off one of my migraine medications this summer. We scaled back slowly, but the withdrawal was still awful. I couldn’t sleep, and yet all I could do was sleep. I wasn’t hungry. Food was boring. I lost weight. My motivation was sapped, my energy drained. I cried.

All of this makes sense, I reminded myself. Withdrawal is hard. It’ll get better.

Withdrawal is over. It’s not better.

My head is holding out, for the most part. I’ve had no major vascular episodes. I’ve had some tingly fingers and lips, a couple visual auras. At least two days with olfactory hallucinations. But no pain. I’ve lost, I would guess, 10 pounds, which my doctor told me to expect. I don’t weigh myself though…that’s opening a whole new can of worms, but my thinking on the issue provided a clue into how depressed I was getting (more on this for Fit Friday).

Worst of all, it makes me believe I deserve to feel as shitty as I feel.

It’s just withdrawal. You’ve felt worse. You were suicidal back in junior high, and at least it’s not that bad. Sure, your sleep is disrupted, but at least you’re sleeping more than four hours a night, and you’re getting naps. You’re not eating much, but it’s summer, and you don’t get terribly hungry in the summer anyway, and your roommate is making you eat dinner at least, and your pants fit better now don’t they?? The structure of the school year will snap you out of my funk. You feel okay. Okay is okay!!

Okay is not okay. I deserve to feel better than just “okay” for the rest of my life.

And here’s the kicker, at least for me: at least three people very close to me are depressed right now. One of them, I counseled and helped get back to the doctor to re-start medication. And things are looking up. Another one? We remind each other to shower and eat when a really bad day happens. Because sometimes someone needs to remind you to shower. And the third? That’s my sister. We’ve been doing this together for over a decade. I can see it and help it in other people, but for myself?

Self care is hard. Because depression lies.

So I called my neurologist this week. I started with him. If he wants to stick with the medication change, I’ll go to my regular doctor and see about my depression/anxiety medication. I don’t deserve to live this way, sleeping on half a bed while the other half is covered in laundry and library books, eating only waffles and coffee, counting my days in naps and avoided phone calls. Okay is not okay.

No one deserves to live this way. My medication withdrawal has passed. Time to stop withdrawing from life.